Reckless (Single Playboys #6)

Chapter 1

One

Last Single Standing

Kelly

I knew I was in trouble the second I hit the bridge into Virgin Cove.

Compound, they called it.

I laughed to myself. Persian palace was probably truer.

And I was about to walk in there as the only woman in my friend group without a man attached to her.

Again.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “You’re going in there,” I told myself. “You are going to eat, drink tea, survive the friends who are now all married or coupled, and not once look pathetic.”

I glanced at my reflection. “Convincing,” I muttered. “Really sold that.”

My phone buzzed in the passenger seat.

Britney: Maman is already making enough food to feed a small nation.

Me: Good. I’d like to emotionally eat my way through being everyone’s favorite leftover.

Three dots appeared.

Britney: You’re not a leftover. Also if you say anything filthy at the table Pedar is right there.

I snorted.

Me: You say that like it’s ever stopped me before.

She didn’t answer, which meant she was already inside and too busy being one half of a terrifyingly competent power couple to keep texting me.

I tossed the phone back down and drove through the open iron gate.

The house spread wide instead of tall, all pale stone and enormous windows catching the evening sun.

Four wings. Two stories. Terraces. Gardens.

A long curving drive. Beyond it, stables, a sweep of lawn, and the glitter of the private cove.

Somewhere farther down, out of sight, were yacht docks and a helipad, because being rich enough to ruin my blood pressure also meant needing several ways to arrive dramatically.

I parked beside a lineup of luxury cars that probably cost more than my entire apartment building and cut the engine.

For a second I sat there, hands still on the wheel, staring at the house.

It wasn’t the money that got me.

Okay, some of it was the money.

But mostly it was the family.

Every time I came here, I got punched in the chest by the same thing.

The warmth. The noise. The way everyone was always touching, hugging, kissing cheeks, calling each other joon and azizam and habibi like affection was part of the oxygen in the place.

The way Roxanne and Parvis had somehow built something enormous and extravagant without making it feel cold.

I loved that about them.

I also hated it a little.

Because it was hard to be the only unattached woman in a room full of that much belonging and not feel like the one kid who showed up to school picture day in the wrong shirt.

“Get over yourself,” I told my reflection in the rearview mirror. “I look fine.”

Better than fine. I’d put on a sundress soft to pass as effortless and fitted enough to remind myself I still had a body under all my jokes.

My hair was down. My makeup was light. I looked like a woman coming to dinner, not a woman about to psychologically unravel because all four of her closest friends had somehow fake-dated into true love and she was now the cautionary tale haunting their group chat.

Amazing.

I got out of the car, smoothed my dress, and headed up the front steps.

A housekeeper smiled the second she saw me. “Kelly khanom.”

“Hi.” I stepped inside and automatically slipped off my sandals near the door.

No shoes in the house. Ever.

The first time I’d come here, I’d thought it was one of those intimidating rich-people rules meant to make the rest of us feel clumsy and American. Then I’d seen the rugs.

Handwoven Persian silk. Rare and gorgeous. I wouldn’t have walked on them in combat boots either.

Voices from the dining room already. Laughter. Someone talking over someone else. The clink of glass.

I made it three more steps before Hope popped around the corner and threw herself at me.

“There she is.”

I laughed and hugged her back. “Jesus. Are you trying to tackle me before appetizers?”

“Yes.” She pulled back and looked me over with suspicious softness. “You look hot.”

“You say that like it’s surprising.”

“It’s not surprising. It’s helpful. Since certain people are here.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m going home.”

Hope grinned. “You got here.”

“That’s enough. I made an appearance. Tell Maman I died bravely.”

Hope hooked her arm through mine before I could even fake an escape. “Too late. She already knows you’re here. Also Miley’s in a mood, Isabel’s pretending she isn’t in a mood, Avril brought dessert even though Maman made enough dessert to end us all, and Britney told me not to let you spiral.”

“I wasn’t spiraling.”

“Better.”

We started toward the dining room. My stomach tightened with every step.

The room itself was obscene.

And every seat looked occupied by someone glowing with romantic success.

Britney sat beside Michael, who looked like what he was, too elegant, too well-bred, too composed to be pretending to be anything as lowly as a butler ever again.

Avril was next to Kir, soft and pretty and still carrying that fragile kind of happiness that made me want to protect her from weather.

Isabel and Roman looked like an oil painting about money and cheekbones.

Miley sat straight-backed and devastating beside Jeff, who kept leaning in to murmur things that made her mouth twitch even when she tried not to smile.

And then there was me.

No seat partner. No male hand draped over the back of my chair. No secret smiles. No one looking for me when I walked in.

“Kelly joon!” Roxanne rose halfway out of her chair with all the dramatic affection of a queen greeting her favorite daughter. “Come here, habibti.”

The woman was impossible not to love. Beautiful, polished and somehow able to make couture and maternal chaos look like a single aesthetic. She swept me into a hug that smelled like expensive perfume and saffron tea.

“You’re late,” she said, kissing one cheek, then the other.

“I’m fashionably disrespectful.”

She laughed. “Go sit. We are starting.”

Parvis looked up from the head of the table with the calm, unnerving warmth he managed better than any man alive. “Kelly.”

“Pedar.” I smiled. “You look terrifyingly powerful tonight.”

Charlie barked a laugh. “That’s because he is. He finished a deal worth more than most country’s GDP today.”

“Thank you, Charlie,” Parvis said dryly.

I should have been used to this by now, the way they all folded me in without question. But it still got to me. The easy welcome. The assumption that of course I would be here, of course I belonged at the table, of course there was room for me in this massive, impossible family.

It would have been easier if they were cold.

Hope nudged me toward my seat.

And then I saw who was sitting across from it.

Of course.

Xerses Norouzi.

He was leaning back in his chair like all this beauty and wealth and family chaos had personally arranged itself to amuse him.

Black shirt. Sleeves rolled once at the forearms. Dark hair.

Darker eyes. Clean jaw. That unfair mouth.

He looked expensive in the same way the house did, only less welcoming and more dangerous.

He lifted his brows when he caught me staring.

“Kelly.”

“I like to make an entrance.”

His gaze slid deliberately over me and back up. “You succeeded.”

Heat inched up my neck.

I sat down too fast and reached for my water like that was a perfectly normal response to being looked at by a billionaire who made half the male population seem decorative.

Miley leaned toward me on my left. “You’re flustered.”

“I hate you.”

She smiled into her wine.

I looked straight ahead and found Xerses still watching me.

Wonderful.

Dinner started the way dinner always started here: with too much food, too much love, and at least four conversations happening at once.

Platters appeared like magic. Rice jeweled with saffron and barberries.

Herb stew rich enough to make me emotional.

Eggplant softened to silk. Flatbread. Yogurt.

Fresh herbs. Pickled things. A level of hospitality that made every holiday I’d grown up with feel undercatered.

Tea came after the first round, poured into clear glasses that caught the light like amber. Sugar cubes, reddish and fragrant with saffron, sat in a bowl in front of Roxanne like a test I was somehow always failing.

Michael and Parvis were discussing something financial and terrifying in calm voices.

Charlie was telling a story loud enough for the mainland to hear.

Hope was laughing at him. Isabel was pretending not to enjoy herself.

Avril kept trying to make sure everyone else had enough on their plates.

Jeff and Miley were having one of those deeply married conversations that mostly involved eye contact and three words at a time.

Roman was quiet in that way that somehow still drew attention.

And across from me, Xerses drank tea like he’d been born with glass and saffron in his hand.

I hated how noticeable he was.

Not extravagant. Never loud. That would’ve been easier.

He was there. Controlled. Intent. Quietly magnetic in a room full of magnetic people.

Worse, he knew it.

Hope elbowed me lightly. “Tell them about your date.”

I didn’t even look at her. “Die.”

Britney, traitor that she was, set down her glass and said, “No, tell it. Maman will love it.”

“Why would Maman love me suffering?”

“Because it’s funny,” Charlie said. “I thought I used to have disasters but you fish out the winners, every time.”

Roxanne clasped her hands. “What happened?”

I should have lied.

Instead I heard myself say, “He showed up dressed like Batman.”

Maman blinked. “Batman?”

“Full commitment,” I said grimly. “Cape. Boots. Belt situation. Voice.”

Charlie bent over laughing.

Michael choked on his tea.

Hope slapped the table. “I told you this one.”

“I still don’t understand why you stayed,” Miley said.

“Because I was in public and raised with manners.”

“That’s not what happened,” Britney said. “You stayed because you wanted to see if he’d keep the voice up through appetizers.”